Still no explanations why anything is happening, this fic is kind of a slice-of-life thing apparently. Slight Soonhoon

“Jihoon, get up. I don’t wanna be late.”

Groaning, Jihoon buries his head further under his pillow. Mingyu sighs. Since the two of them got married, Mingyu was always late to his first class. He thought Jihoon was a proper, responsible adult, but it turned out that being married to him gave Mingyu the huge responsibility of waking him up.

“Mr. Lee,” Mingyu calls, shaking Jihoon’s shoulders. “Students are gonna start complaining to their parents that you’re always late. Do you want that?”

No response.

Taking a deep breath, Mingyu pulls Jihoon away from his pillow by his legs, then hoists Jihoon’s body on his shoulder roughly. Jihoon’s kicking the air and pounding on his back with his fists, but Morning Jihoon is not very strong, so Mingyu manages to carry him all the way to the kitchen.

Jihoon is dropped on a chair, his hair a mess and looking like he’s ready to kill anything that moves. He takes a sip of the coffee Mingyu sets in front of him and his expression softens somewhat.

“Why can’t you wake me up normally?” Jihoon complains after he’s finished his coffee in one continuous gulp. He scrubs at his eyes with his hands and Mingyu almost thinks he’s cute, but Jihoon is infuriating today.

“Why can’t you wake up normally?” Mingyu barks back. He’s annoyed, yes, but he sets the bowls of rice and side dishes he’d prepared in front of Jihoon anway. “You’re always so difficult! You’re the adult here, not me! Why can’t you act like one!”

Jihoon glowers at him, shoving chunks of rice into his mouth angrily.

“I’ll wash up and get dressed. You better be done eating when I come back!” Mingyu threatens before stomping off. Why couldn’t Jihoon be more responsible? Or more considerate? He’s a full five years older than Mingyu and has a full-time job, so he should be an expert at adult-ing and not depending on his younger husband.

“Don’t tell me what to do, kid!” Jihoon yells after him.

-

The drive to the train station is silent. Mingyu’s plugged in his earphones; he didn’t want to listen to even Jihoon’s stupid Justin Bieber songs (although he had to admit that Justin Bieber had pretty good songs lately).

“I’m not making you dinner tonight,” Mingyu says haughtily when they get to the station. Jihoon shrugs nonchalantly, not even looking at Mingyu. Mingyu makes a face at him one last time before getting out of the car, making sure to slam the door shut extra hard.

-

Second period is history class, meaning Mingyu would have to look at Jihoon’s stupid face for an hour.

“I don’t feel like teaching today, so today I’m having you write an essay on last week’s discussion about the Korean war.”

Groans resound inside the classroom, but Jihoon’s cold stare gets them to shut up immediately. Jihoon sits down at the teacher’s desk after writing on the board that they were to write down what they remembered and then what their reaction was. He cups his face in his hands, elbows resting on the desk, and stares at Mingyu. Mingyu glares back. How dare Lee Jihoon abuse his power as a teacher to get back at him? Mingyu wasn’t even the one at fault, it was Jihoon who wasn’t cooperating this morning and he’d only done what he could to get them both to school.

“Hey, Gyu.”

Mingyu turns to look at Soonyoung, whose seat was beside him.

“Whoa, chill, it’s just an essay!” Soonyoung says defensively. Apparently, the glare on Mingyu’s face hadn’t left. “Lemme borrow a pen.”

Mingyu doesn’t have an extra pen, so Soonyoung does a very Soonyoung thing to do: draw attention to himself. He doesn’t even do it on purpose, Mingyu thinks, he’s just naturally very loud and outgoing. Soonyoung raises his hand and calls “Mr. Lee!!”

Jihoon doesn’t even move. “Yes?”

“I don’t have a pen!” Soonyoung announces. He smiles with a hint of shyness. “Can I borrow one from you?”

This er. He was trying to get close to Jihoon. Mingyu narrows his eyes at Jihoon, waiting for his reaction. Jihoon thankfully looks like he doesn’t care, as usual, but gets a pen from his pen case and beckons for Soonyoung to get it at his desk.

Soonyoung looks very happy as he bounds to the teacher’s desk. He very obviously tries to touch Jihoon’s hand by holding out his own hand for the pen, but Jihoon drops it on his hand. “Sir, thank you!” Soonyoung says with a salute before going back to his desk. He grins at Mingyu victoriously.

“You. The one who borrowed the pen.”

Soonyoung looks back at Jihoon. “Yes?”

“Fix your necktie. I can see your collarbones.”

-

“Gyu, he was checking out my collarbones!” Soonyoung slaps at Mingyu’s back excitedly. “And I have his pen!”

Mingyu frowns. Why was this guy even his friend and why was he even eating lunch with him; he was a ert who ed over teachers. And the teacher was his very own Jihoonie! He opens his packed lunch in silence, rejecting Soonyoung when he asks for some of it.

Seungkwan is also frowning, but only because Soonyoung had “very bad taste”. Seokmin was genuinely happy for his friend, cheering Soonyoung on loudly.

-

After a grueling day at school (having to listen to Soonyoung fawn over his husband, who was apparently ‘even cuter up close’), Mingyu goes to his part-time job at the convenience store near the apartment he and Jihoon shared. A few hours and an impromptu rap battle with fellow part-timer Wonwoo later, he sees a familiar mop of pink hair enter the premises. Mingyu frowns, remembering this morning’s argument, but greets Jihoon anyway with the opening spiel for customers. Jihoon nods in acknowledgement.

Jihoon buys a canned coffee and pays at Wonwoo’s lane instead of Mingyu’s, then sits at the empty tables for customers. He takes out papers from his bag and starts grading them, occasionally sneaking glances at Mingyu. He stays like that for a few hours, until he gets up and goes to the freezers again.

For some reason, Jihoon goes to Mingyu’s lane this time, paying for two cups of ice cream. Mingyu thanks him like he would a normal customer. He’s surprised when Jihoon holds one cup of ice cream to him.

“What?” Mingyu asks. He’s confused but takes the ice cream anyway. Wonwoo stares at the scene. He’s got nothing better to do, as there weren’t any other customers in need of assistance.

“Your shift is almost over, isn’t it?” Jihoon asks. He’s looking away from Mingyu, his ears noticeably red. “I, um… Where do you wanna eat. I’lltreatyou.” Jihoon shuffles back to the seating area quickly.

“What was that?” Wonwoo looks as confused as Mingyu. “You know him?”

The ice cream is starting to numb his hands, so Mingyu sets it on the counter. “Yeah. He’s my…” He couldn’t say he was married; he was a high school student. “Boyfriend.” He feels his face heat up. Jihoon would probably kill him if he’d heard that.

Wonwoo nods, but stares at Mingyu blankly for a while. “You go ahead, Mingyu,” he says at last. “I can handle the 0 customers we have by myself.”

Mingyu thanks him by giving him his ice cream.

-

“What is this?” Mingyu asks as they’re seated at a nearby family restaurant waiting for their chicken.

“You said you wouldn’t cook,” Jihoon mumbles. “So I’m taking you out.”

Oh, right. He didn’t really mean it, but apparently it had scared Jihoon into buying him food. Mingyu thinks he knows how to threaten Jihoon now, but he wasn’t going exploit him.

Wait.

Mingyu smiles, his canines showing.

“Is this your way of apologizing?” he asks happily.

“I just don’t want to starve,” Jihoon says back grumpily. He cracks a smile when Mingyu laughs, and pretty soon they’re both laughing, no apologies needed to fix their little argument.